2024-08-29
Coordinated claims-making that impinges on someone else’s interest
Must be:
Collective
Deliberate
Political (involves government even if indirectly)
At least some non-institutional component
Originates with research on protests and social movements…but!
Social movements are considered one tool in the contentious repertoire
What is a social movement?
Sustained campaigns
Public claims-making that challenges authorities
Displays of worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment (WUNC)
Sustained by existing networks and organizations
Where do they start? (according to Tilly: Europe in the late 1700s)
Contentious politics is universal but:
Older forms were parochial, avoided direct challenge to authority, made non-systemic demands, and worked by direct influence (public humiliation, destruction of property, physical pain)
They’re tied to the emergence of liberal democracy, industrialization and capitalism, and the emergence of nation states.
They don’t happen everywhere, and they might eventually become as archaic as chivaree
Social movements, strikes, riots, terrorism, revolutions etc. are all part of a repertoire of contention
They share some causes and fundamental problems (maybe even have the same actors) and so we should study them together
Olson: the demand for collective action will generally exceed the supply
Contentious actors face a Free-Rider problem (why?)
Overcoming it typically requires organization and resources
Contentious politics involves groups with disparate interests
Contentious politics takes place in a social/political/economic context
Contentious politics involves government
Collective action requires a shared identity
Even if we can solve the free rider problem, we need to agree on what to do, who we are, who we represent, and who we oppose
Contention takes place over time, and often occurs in waves and cycles:
Map of the Revolutions of 1848
Some similarities in research methods across fields:
Event catalogs
Organizational ecology, network analysis
Surveys and individual biographies
Process tracing, comparative methods
Why do [people] rebel?
What kinds of conditions cause people to engage in contentious politics?
Are crowds “mad” or is collective action rational?
Social movements as historically contingent
Hudibras Encounters the Skimmington (engraving by William Hogarth)